Segolene Royal and Martine Aubry in runoff for French Socialist party leadership

France's former presidential candidate Segolene Royal will face Martine Aubry,
the architect of France's 35-hour work week, in a runoff vote after
opposition Socialists remained divided over who should be their new leader.

1:07AM GMT 21 Nov 2008

After a fierce first-round that left the party more divided than ever, Ms Royal got 42.45 per cent of votes in a first round while Ms Aubry came second with 34.73 per cent. Leftist Euro-MP Benoit Hamon was eliminated from the contest.

The results were revealed by a source close to the leadership of the party, and did not include France's foreign territories.

The Socialist Party's 233,000 members cast their ballots after a party congress meant to unite behind a consensus candidate ended in disarray at the weekend.

With none of the contenders garnering a majority, a runoff vote was to be held between Ms Royal and Ms Aubry on Friday.

Ms Royal, 55, a polarising figure seen by fans as a force for renewal but denounced by critics as politically inconsistent, is running for the post of first secretary to replace her estranged former partner, Francois Hollande.

Some Socialist activists see her mass appeal as their main hope, but others threaten to quit the party if she wins.

One well-known Socialist legislator, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has already done so, saying that support for Ms Royal within the party meant he no longer recognised it as his political home because Royal is too far removed from the party's left-wing heritage.

Martine Aubry, 58, is the mayor of the northern city of Lille.

She is backed by an unlikely coalition of "elephants", as the party old guard are known in France, who used to be rivals and are now united only in their dislike of Ms Royal.